Social media sites are transforming not only the daily lives of consumers, but also how companies interact with consumers. Here at Morrison Foerster, across all of our practice groups, we are seeing complex, cutting-edge legal issues arising out of social media. As with the Internet boom during the mid-to-late 1990s, social media is generating new legal questions at a far faster pace than the law’s ability to provide answers to such questions. In an effort to stay on top of these emerging issues, and to keep our clients and friends informed of new developments, Morrison Foerster publishes this blog devoted to the law and business of social media.<h2>ABOUT MORRISON FOERSTER</h2>Morrison Foerster is a leading global law firm that transforms complexity into advantage for its clients. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, banks, consulting and accounting firms, and Fortune 100, technology, and life sciences companies. Highlighting the firm’s commitment to client service, leadership in market-changing deals and impact litigation, and values-based culture, Morrison Foerster has been repeatedly recognized as one of the top 10 firms on The American Lawyer’s A-List. Year after year, the firm receives significant recognition from Chambers and The Legal 500 across their various guides, including Global, USA, Asia‑Pacific, Europe, UK, Latin America, and FinTech Legal. Our lawyers passionately care about delivering legal excellence while living our values. Morrison Foerster has a long-standing commitment to creating a culture that respects and celebrates differences, while providing an inclusive environment. The firm has achieved Mansfield Certification Plus since 2018 as a result of successfully reaching at least 30 percent women, communities of color, and LGBTQ+ lawyer representation in a notable number of current leadership roles and committees. The firm also has a long history of commitment to the community and society through providing pro bono legal services, including litigating for civil rights and civil liberties, improving public education and fostering the wellbeing of children, advocating for veterans, promoting international human rights, enforcing the right to asylum, and safeguarding the environment.

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Aaron is the chair of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group and co-chair of the Interactive + Digital Media Group. He advises clients on a wide range of complex transactions involving intellectual property and technology, including structuring and negotiating strategic licensing, development, collaboration, procurement, and distribution deals.Aaron’s practice focuses on advising both established and emerging companies in a variety of data- and technology-intensive sectors, including software, SaaS, cloud-based technology, digital media (social media, AR/VR, gaming, streaming media, AdTech), AI, healthcare, consumer electronics, e-commerce, other online business models, and mobile applications. He also maintains an active practice counseling companies on branding and marketing, trademark licensing, and content-related transactions, as well as the intellectual property aspects of mergers, acquisitions, asset spin-offs, and private equity investments.He has represented clients such as Autodesk, Meta, OpenAI, Splunk, Konami, Kaiser Permanente, SoftBank, Visa, and Yahoo, among others.Aaron has been recognized by numerous publications for his work on market-defining technology transactions. He is currently ranked by Chambers USA for “Technology Transactions.”Aaron also serves as co-editor of Socially Aware, the firm’s award-winning newsletter and blog devoted to the law and business of social media, and regularly publishes on various IP and technology-related topics. Aaron is also a sought-after speaker on new and emerging areas of law, and is a frequent presenter and panelist at conferences and legal services programs. In addition to his active practice, Aaron regularly provides pro bono assistance to various nonprofit and charitable organizations such as Common Sense Media and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. He is a member of the board of directors of California Lawyers for the Arts.While in law school at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, Aaron served as executive editor of the California Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Aaron served as law clerk to the Honorable William H. Orrick and the Honorable Martin J. Jenkins, both United States District Judges for the Northern District of California.

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Aaron is the chair of our Technology Transactions Group. He advises clients on a wide range of complex transactions involving intellectual property and technology, including structuring and negotiating strategic licensing, development, collaboration, procurement, and distribution deals. Aaron’s practice focuses on advising both established and emerging companies in a variety of data– and technology–intensive sectors, including software, SaaS, cloud computing, AR/VR, AI, gaming, healthcare, consumer electronics, social media, e–commerce, other online business models, and mobile applications. He also maintains an active practice counseling companies on the intellectual property aspects of mergers, acquisitions, asset spin–offs, and private equity investments.

Aaron P. Rubin

Lawrence Gallick is of counsel in the firm’s Austin office and a member of the Technology Transactions Group.Lawrence focuses his practice on technology transactions and licensing matters. His diverse experience includes advising on SaaS agreements, cross-licensing agreements, research and collaboration agreements, development agreements, and distribution agreements. He counsels a broad range of companies across the software, hardware, life sciences, biotech and FinTech spaces, as well as other entities including universities.He advises clients in connection with general corporate matters including contract negotiations, and leasing and technology placement agreements.Lawrence also serves as co-editor of <a href="https://www.sociallyawareblog.com/" target="_blank">Socially Aware</a>, the firm’s award-winning newsletter and blog devoted to the law and business of social media, and regularly publishes on various IP and technology-related topics.Prior to joining the firm, Lawrence was counsel at another major law firm. Before earning his law degree, Lawrence was a web consultant, project manager, and web developer in Portland, Oregon, where he managed and consulted on projects using industry methodologies and performed custom development and integration of content management systems.Lawrence was named a Super Lawyers “Rising Star” in 2015 and 2018–2022, and is licensed in both California and New York. Lawrence earned his J.D. from the University at Buffalo School of Law, where he was the electronic systems editor for the Buffalo Law Review and awarded the ABA-BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Intellectual Property Law.

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Anthony Ramirez is a partner in the Technology Transactions Group in the New York office of Morrison Foerster.Anthony advises clients on general commercial and transactional matters. He regularly advises companies on the IP aspects of their M&A transactions. His clients include technology, digital media and content for television and music, financial services, and communications companies with diverse intellectual property assets and issues.His practice focuses on the legal aspects of developing, licensing, and commercializing technology and intellectual property, as well as negotiating general commercial contracts, including outsourcing transactions, as well as content and data licenses. He regularly assists clients with legal issues relating to licensing and commercialization of digital media and content, digital content that is distributed over the Internet or streamed, mobile applications and social media, as well as the licensing of recorded music for distribution via digital platforms. Anthony is also experienced with issues relating to open-source software, software development, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud-based technology, and protection of proprietary information.Anthony has extensive experience working on matters involving disruptive technologies, such as blockchain. He has helped fintech clients with general intellectual property issues in connection with terms of service for online financial products and services.Anthony is an integral part of the outside pro bono legal team for nonprofit organizations based in New York, including advising clients on legal issues regarding entertainment, social media, privacy rights, and the negotiation of outsourcing and service agreements. Anthony received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2009. He received his B.S. from Cornell University in 2004.

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Anthony Ramirez is a partner in the Technology Transactions Group in the New York office of Morrison Foerster. He advises clients on general commercial and transactional matters. His clients include technology, media, and communications companies with considerable intellectual property assets. His practice focuses on the legal aspects of licensing and commercializing technology and intellectual property, as well as negotiating general commercial contracts. He also regularly assists clients with legal issues relating to mobile applications and social media.

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Socially Aware is devoted to the law and business of social media, proactively addressing emerging issues and keeping our clients informed of new developments. We cover fields such as artificial intelligence, privacy and data security, Section 230, intellectual property, and much more.

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Lawrence W. Gallick

All Your Sale Are Belong to Us - Mitigating IP and Payments Risk in In-Game Economies (Part II – User-Generated Content and In-Game Payment Models)

A New California Digital Content Law Establishes New Requirements for Advertisers and Vendors

California’s Assembly Bill 587 Loses Key Provisions After Legal Challenge from X

Social Links: TikTok Tussles, Teen Privacy Push, and the Thumbs-Up That Sealed the Deal

Utah’s New App Store Age Verification Law: What S.B. 142 Means for Kids, Parents, and Tech

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The explosive growth of social media has clients facing legal questions that didn’t even exist a few short years ago. Helping your clients navigate this muddled legal landscape will have them clicking “like” in no time.What’s in a Like?Not long ago, the word “like” was primarily a verb (and an interjection used by “valley girls”). You could have likes and dislikes in the sense of preferences, but you couldn’t give someone a like, claim to own a like or assert legal rights in likes. Today, however, a company’s social media pages and profiles, and the associated likes, followers and connections, are often considered valuable business assets. Courts have come to various conclusions regarding whether likes and similar social media constructs constitute property, but one thing is clear: Every company that uses social media should have in place clear policies regarding employee social media use and ownership of business-related social media accounts.Employees who manage a company’s social media accounts often insert themselves as the “voice” of the brand and establish a rapport with the company’s fans and followers. Without clear policies that address ownership of social media accounts, and clearly distinguish between the company’s accounts and employees’ personal accounts, your client may find itself in a dispute when these employees leave the company and try to take the company’s fans and followers with them.Read a more detailed description of “likes” as assets <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/11/04/whats-in-a-like/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.Dirty LaundryIt comes as no surprise that employees frequently use social media to complain about managers and coworkers, pay, work conditions and other aspects of their employment. Companies often would prefer not to air these issues publicly, so they establish policies and impose discipline when employees’ social media activity becomes problematic. Companies need to be careful, however, that their policies and disciplinary actions comply with applicable law.A number of National Labor Relations Board decisions have examined whether employees’ statements on social media constitute “concerted activity”—activity by two or more employees that provides mutual aid or protection regarding terms or conditions of employment—for purposes of the National Labor Relations Act (which, notably, applies regardless of whether the employees are unionized or not). Companies also need to be careful to comply with state statutes limiting employer access to employees’ personal social media accounts, such as California Labor Code Section 980, which prohibits an employer from asking an employee or applicant to disclose personal social media usernames or passwords, access personal social media in the presence of the employer, or divulge personal social media.Read more about the intersection of social media policies and labor law <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/01/22/uncovering-a-line-in-the-sand-employee-social-media-use-and-the-nlra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> and <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2013/01/16/social-media-and-the-national-labor-relations-act-what-employers-need-to-know-in-drafting-and-updating-their-social-media-policies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.Terms of (Ab)useCompanies often consider their social media pages and profiles to be even more important than are the companies’ own websites for marketing and maintaining customer engagement. But a company’s own website has one advantage over a third party social media platform: The company sets its own terms for use of its website, while the third party social media platform is subject to terms of use imposed by the platform operator. And, in many cases, the terms imposed on users of social media platforms are onerous and make little distinction between individual users using the platform just for recreation and corporate users who depend on the platform for their businesses.Social media terms of use often grant platform operators broad licenses to content posted on the platform, impose one-sided indemnification obligations on users, and permit platform operators to terminate users’ access with or without cause. You may have little luck negotiating modifications to such online contracts for your clients, but you can at least inform your clients of the terms that govern their use of social media, so that they can weigh the costs and benefits.Read more about social media platforms’ terms of use <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/10/06/implementing-and-enforcing-online-terms-of-use/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/09/23/to-click-or-not-to-click-ninth-circuit-rejects-browsewrap-arbitration-clause/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2013/12/03/potential-limitations-placed-on-unilateral-right-to-modify-terms-of-use/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.Same as It Ever WasWhen it comes to using social media for advertising, the media may be new but the rules are the same as ever. Companies that advertise through social media—especially by leveraging user endorsements—need to comply with Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bars “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” Bloggers and others who endorse products must actually use the product and must disclose any “material connections” they have with the product providers (for example, a tech blogger reviewing a mobile phone that she received for free from the manufacturer should disclose that fact). Because this information is likely to affect consumers’ assessment of an endorsement, failure to disclose may be deemed deceptive. So if you have a client that uses endorsements to promote its products, make sure to brush up on the FTC “Dot Com Disclosures” and other relevant FTC guidance.Read more about endorsement disclosure obligations <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/12/03/ftc-enforcement-action-confirms-that-ad-disclosure-obligations-extend-to-endorsements-made-in-social-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.Good RepAs noted, a company’s social media pages, followers, etc., may constitute valuable business assets. But buyers in M&A transactions often neglect such assets when formulating the seller’s reps and warranties. Buyers should consider asking the seller to disclose all social media accounts that the target company uses and to represent and warrant that none of the target’s social media account names infringe any third party trademark or other IP rights, that all use of the accounts complies with applicable terms of service, and that the target has implemented policies providing that the company (and not any employee) owns all business-related social media accounts and imposing appropriate guidelines regarding employee use of social media.Finally, if you have clients that use social media, it’s important to be familiar with the popular social media platforms and their (ever-changing) rules and features. Learning to spot these issues isn’t going to turn you into the next Shakira—as of this writing, the most liked person on Facebook with well over 100 million likes—but your clients will surely appreciate your help as they traverse the social media maze.Read more about social media assets in M&A transactions <a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2015/01/12/good-rep-social-media-assets-in-ma-transactions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.<div>This piece originally appeared in The Recorder.</div><div></div>

Aaron is the chair of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group and co-chair of the Interactive + Digital Media Group. He advises clients on a wide range of complex transactions involving intellectual property and technology, including structuring and negotiating strategic licensing, development, collaboration, procurement, and distribution deals.

Aaron Rubin

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Five Social Media Law Issues To Discuss With Your Clients

Five Social Media Law Issues To Discuss With Your Clients

The explosive growth of social media has clients facing legal questions that didn’t even exist a few short years ago. Helping your clients navigate this muddled

Congress has taken a step toward protecting consumers’ rights to post negative reviews on websites like Ripoff Report or Yelp with the introduction, by Representative Darrell E. Issa of California, of the Consumer Review Freedom Act of 2015 (the CFRA).The CFRA follows a California law, enacted in 2014, which made it illegal for businesses to penalize their customers for posting negative reviews of their products or services online. The California law, <a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB2365" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AB 2365</a>, was passed in response to a growing number of incidents where businesses have used non-disparagement clauses buried in form contracts to charge fines of several hundred to several thousand dollars. Such incidents have occurred all over the country—from a New York hotel withholding $500 from a couple’s security deposit after a member of the couple’s wedding party posted a negative review, to a Michigan-based Internet retailer charging two of its customers in Utah $3,500 after they published a review criticizing the retailer’s customer service.AB 2365 sought to put a stop to such incidents by prohibiting businesses from including in any contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services any provision that requires the consumer to waive his or her right “to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods or services.” The statute also makes it unlawful to enforce such a provision “or to otherwise penalize a consumer for making any statement protected under” the law. This is presumably intended to address situations in which a business does not explicitly prohibit negative reviews, but instead seeks to impose a penalty on a consumer who posts a negative review, as in the Michigan case noted above.The CFRA is intended to take the California policy and expand it nationwide. Similarly to AB 2365, the CFRA prohibits businesses from including in any form contract a provision that prohibits or restricts a person from, or imposes a penalty or fee against a person for, engaging in a “written, verbal, or pictorial review, performance assessment of, or other similar analysis of, the products, services, or conduct of a business or person which is a party to the form contract.” The CFRA empowers the Attorney General to bring actions for a civil penalty of up to $16,000 for each day that the business requires the use of the penalizing contract by a distinct person.The CRFA also closes a potential loophole in AB 2365 that at least one enterprising organization <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/all-your-reviews-are-belong-to-us-medical-justice-vs-patient-free-speech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">had been encouraging</a> its clients to use. <a href="http://www.medicaljustice.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Medical Justice</a>, an organization that provides template form contracts to medical service providers, had included language in those contracts purporting to assign to the service provider the copyright in any review posted by a patient. If effective, this assignment would allow the service provider to issue takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or threaten the publishing websites with infringement actions. AB 2365 did not expressly address such assignment provisions, but the CRFA voids any provision that “transfers … to any person or business any intellectual property rights that the individual may have in any otherwise lawful [communication] about the person or the goods or services provided by the person or business.”Though it is unclear how likely the CFRA is to become law, it has bipartisan sponsorship and certain key players have publicly voiced their support. For example, Yelp has come out strongly in favor of the CFRA in a post on its official blog. The bill is currently being reviewed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and has been referred to a subcommittee.With a political environment that is increasingly hostile to non-disparagement clauses, businesses will now have to consider different ways of avoiding negative reviews—perhaps by providing better products and services.

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The Right to Give One-Star Reviews

Congress has taken a step toward protecting consumers’ rights to post negative reviews on websites like Ripoff Report or Yelp with the introduction, by Represen

The Right to Give One-Star Reviews

Is it stealing to take data without permission from a public website, or is it simply making use of resources that are made available to you? “Web scraping” or “screen scraping” is the practice of extracting large amounts of data from public websites using bots.A recent case in the European Court of Justice has focused attention both on the intellectual property infringement aspects of scraping practices and on the potential for website owners to use their sites’ contractual terms and conditions to combat the scrapers.Scraping is not new, but it has become increasingly widespread in recent years, fuelled by the rise in big data analytics and the popularity of price comparison websites. Indeed, in 2013, it accounted for 18% of site visitors and 23% of all Internet traffic. Scraping is not inherently bad: it can have legitimate uses, spur innovation and give companies with limited resources access to large amounts of data. However, unsurprisingly, many website operators do not like it. Not only are operators keen to protect their proprietary rights, but repeated scraping can also take a heavy toll on websites by using up bandwidth and leading to network crashes.In the U.S., website operators have asserted various claims against scrapers, including copyright claims, trespass to chattels claims and contract-based claims alleging that scrapers violated their websites terms of use. In the EU, operators have tended to rely on intellectual property infringement claims against scrapers, but there has been little case law to provide guidance.However, in January 2015, in a much anticipated decision, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) held that where a website operator cannot establish intellectual property rights in its database, an operator may still be able to rely on its website terms and conditions to prohibit scraping. This ruling may impact an increasing number of companies whose business models rely on mining data from websites and social media platforms without permission. On the other hand, it will be viewed positively by those data-rich businesses keen to protect and/or monetise their data.RYANAIR LTD V PR AVIATIONThe CJEU case involved PR Aviation which operates a price-comparison website for low-cost airlines. Consumers can book a flight on the website and PR Aviation receives a commission. The website relies on information obtained by screen scraping publicly available data from the websites of low cost airlines, including data from Ryanair’s website.Ryanair sued the defendant for infringement of database rights under the Database Directive (96/9/EC), and breach of its website terms and conditions. It sought an order against PR Aviation to refrain from any further infringement on pain of a financial penalty and for PR Aviation to pay damages.WHAT ARE DATABASE RIGHTS?Database rights are a form of unregistered intellectual property rights introduced by the Database Directive in 1996 and implemented into national law across the European Union.The aim of the Database Directive was to harmonise the rules that applied to copyright protection of databases across the EU, safeguard the investment of database makers and secure the legitimate interests of database users. In essence, the Directive sought to create a legal framework appropriate to the use of databases in the information age. It did so by ensuring copyright protection to those elements of databases possessing protectable expression and introducing a new form of “sui generis” protection to those elements of databases which are not “original” in the sense of being the author’s own intellectual creation.Accordingly, the Database Directive provides two forms of protection. Article 3(1) establishes the first of these rights: “databases which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author’s own intellectual creation shall be protected as such by copyright”. The second form of protection (established by Article 7) provides protection where there “has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents [of a database]”.Importantly, the Database Directive includes certain limited exceptions to the rights created. In particular, Article 6 allows lawful users to make a copy of a copyright-protected database without consent where it is necessary to do so in order to access its contents. Further, Article 8 permits lawful users of a publicly available database to extract and/or reuse insubstantial parts of its contents, as long as this use does not conflict with normal exploitation of the database or unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the database’s author.DUTCH SUPREME COURTThe Ryanair dispute ended up in the Dutch Supreme Court where PR Aviation successfully argued that Ryanair could not rely on copyright protection because Ryanair’s database was not sufficiently original to attract copyright protection, and also that there had been insufficient investment by Ryanair, in compiling its database, for it to claim the sui generis right.However, the court still faced the question whether Ryanair could assert a claim that PR Aviation had breached Ryanair’s website terms and conditions by scraping and re-using data from the Ryanair site. Significantly, Ryanair’s website terms and conditions contain the following express prohibition on the use of screen scraping: “The use of automated systems or software to extract data from this website or www.bookryanair.com for commercial purposes (‘screen scraping’) is prohibited unless the third party has directly concluded a written licence agreement with Ryanair which permits access to Ryanair’s price, flight and timetable information for the sole purpose of price comparison.”Ryanair sought to enforce this term. PR Aviation argued that the prohibition against screen scraping was not enforceable because, under Article 15 of the Database Directive, any contractual provisions which are contrary to Articles 6 and 8 are rendered null and void. The Dutch Supreme Court was unsure whether Article 15 of the Directive applied to a database which did not attract copyright protection or the sui generis right and therefore it sought a preliminary ruling from the CJEU.CJEU DECISIONIn a logical ruling, the CJEU ruled that the limitations on rights introduced by the Database Directive do not apply to databases that are not protected by the Directive. Accordingly, Articles 6, 8 and 15 of the Database Directive do not preclude a website operator from laying down contractual limits on the use of a database, without prejudice to applicable national law.The case has now been sent back to the Dutch courts, which must decide on the enforceability of the Ryanair website terms and conditions.For a website owner, it is not simply a question of prohibiting scraping in its terms and conditions; an operator also needs to ensure that those terms and conditions are enforceable. We have written before about the issues involved, particularly in Europe, in ensuring that online terms are deemed fair and reasonable.Ideally, a website operator would require any user of its site to accept the website terms and conditions before allowing the user to access the website. However, the majority of sites are reluctant to enforce this rule because it is not considered user-friendly. It is therefore more common to ensure that a link to the terms is displayed prominently on the site. The problem with this method is that there is no active acceptance of the terms (e.g., clicking a box). As a result, there is a risk that the website owner will be unable to demonstrate that there is a contract in place with the user. This is a question for national law, as indicated in this case.There is no binding case law on the issue in the UK. Unfortunately, although the issue was touched on in the recent high-profile Newspaper Licensing Agency v Meltwater [2011] EWCA Civ 890, the Court of Appeal did not consider whether an end-user was bound by the website terms of use because, given the nature of the case, it said that it was unnecessary “to enter into that controversy”.Lastly, the Ryanair judgment does not answer the question of whether a screenscraper would ever be able to rely on the lawful use exceptions set out in Article 6 or 8 of the Database Directive if the database owner were able to establish copyright protection or the sui generis right in the database.OTHER CLAIMSIt is worth pointing out that, in addition to intellectual property rights infringement and contract breach claims, website owners may have other legal arguments against scraping. For example, as in the U.S., in the UK, a website operator may try to bring a claim for trespass to chattels, a common law tort. In addition, an operator may seek to rely on the Computer Misuse Act 1990 which prohibits unauthorised access to, or modification of, computer material. To date, as with database rights, neither of these arguments have been tested in the UK courts in connection with web scraping. (However, similar legislation has formed the basis of claims elsewhere, for example, in the U.S., as described in our previous alert, “<a href="http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2014/07/21/data-for-the-taking-using-the-cfaa-to-combat-web-scraping/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Data for the Taking: Using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to Combat Web Scraping</a>”.)Of course, when dealing with scraped data, issues of privacy and security loom large and web scrapers and users of scraped data will also need to tread extremely carefully in order to avoid problems under applicable privacy laws. For a detailed discussion on privacy and big data, see our previous Alert.CONCLUSIONThe CJEU’s Ryanair decision appears to give a rather contrary result – in certain circumstances, a database owner may have broader, albeit contractual, rights to prevent scraping if it does not actually have proprietary rights in the database. However, in any event, in light of this decision, website owners based in the EU may be encouraged to amend their website terms and conditions to expressly prohibit screen-scraping in order to try to protect their valuable data.Whether the impact of this decision will truly disrupt those companies with business models that rely on the use of data mined from websites and social media platforms remains to be seen. Certainly, any business that carries out screen-scraping activities should consider where it sources its data from and identify whether such data are bound by contractual limitations or other restrictions. It can then make a reasoned decision on whether or not it should approach the database owner for a commercial licence to ensure that the data keeps flowing.

Data for the Taking: Using Website Terms and Conditions to Combat Web Scraping